Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-02-21
Under Sentence OF Death.

| hot with action, intoxicated with
noise, the yells of comrades, the rat
tie of musketry, the whizz of mines,
whir of balls and clatter of shells, the
cheers of victors, the rush for posi-
ton and desperate holding, the hu-
man passion and spiteful revenge
and the reused taste for blood and
! carnage innate in the animal man ,un-
der fire in the frenzy of fight, is no
test of courage. Many man stands
there because he is afraid to run.
| remember in the battle of Port
Republic, in the three days fighting
around Cross Keys, down in the Val
ley of Virginia, in '62, our regiment
W. L. Jackson's old Thirty-frst Vir-
| ginia, was one of three ordered to
storm and take battery of nine pieo-
es, supported by five regiments of IN
| fantry and some of the coolest, most
accurate sharp-shooters we had met.
| Bv some miscarriage the order came
only to our regiment, now decimated
by fighting and forced marching to
| PA men.
But we crawled up through the Oat
field on our bellies, rising to shoot,
dropping again to load and advance.
| And every time we rose some COM
rades rose to rise no more. We near
| ed the crest until we could almost
look down the black, sulphurous
throats of those nine twelve-pounders
that were belching grape and canis-
ter into our very mouths.
Five times had our colors fallen,
one, two, three, four, five of our tall
| est brave fellows, one after another,
raised with the regimental flag, and
| fell shot through the forehead.
They had been picked off by the
| sharpshooters, one after another,
those gallant western Virginia noun
| taineers, as fast as a color bearer fell,
snatching up the flag and rising with
| it.
The fifth had fallen. A sergeant
jumped from Company G. to raise
the standard.
''Better let that-thing alone, Bill
growled Lieut.. Cooper. ''Use both
hands with your bayonet next rise"
Bill Cooper was Pennsylvania,
| as brave a man as crawled back with
| our little remnant of ia that day.
After we had reached safe quarters
and were lying down to rest in the
woods, he turned to me to ask:
'What were you looking up and
down the line in there for, Bill?"
Lieutenant, was the answer, 81
was looking for Il chance to run.
''By - so was / !'' gruffiy retorted
the quondam man of valor; but =
if every fellow in the regiment wasn't
looking right at me-
Ave, aye, it takes less courage to
stand than to run away from battle.
But / did get a touch that tested
me most sorely after that, when they
sent me Through the lines in the
''secret service"
Never mind what my business, or
how I was betrayed, and how | was
gathered in. Enough that they bag
ged me $50 miles inside the enemy's
lines and hustled me off to prison at
Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor,
where ] was confronted with the
charge of being a spy. No matter
that had on when captured my full
uniform as captain. No matter that
at my court-martial trial their own
officer who captured me testified that
he did not take me as a spy, and that
there was no work for a spy when he
captured me.
No matter; l was found guilty land
the sentence was read to me $50
be hanged as a spy on the parade
ground of Fort McHenry, between
the hours of II m. and p. M, Nov.
3, 1863"
In answer to my request that, if
they must kill me, for the sake Of
honor to give me the death of q. sol /
der, they graciously changed the pa |
per to read, sTo be shot to death /
with musketry on the parade ground,
etc. |
Somehow, I suppose | did not full
ly comprehend or adequately appre-
ciate my situation, for l did not feel |
then, any more than do now, that
death was to be my next deal. Nor
had | at all contemplated that result
all through the trial. Only the last |
day before that sentence was read to |
me, had been creating merriment
by asking puzzling or irrelevant ques-
tions of the judge-advocate, telling |
jokes during the recesses of the court,
Ill NllN SIS IltlIlIICIo CICatlIiS lul1 W !
draw mirth for myself out of that |
barren rock, military justice" Only |
the day before the president of the
court-martial, the colonel of the reg
iment. twelve of whose officers COM
posed my adjudicators, asked to talk |
a little with me in private, as between
man and man.
:sOf course"
Captain" said he, Il greatly |
fear you do not properly appreciate
your present situation"
s'Well, colonel, / know of no man
more favorably situated to realize 1t.
Why do you say sop
ssBecause, sir, your life is at stake